Bonhams Natural History Auction

Allosaurus claw boasts exceptional preservation and size.  Dinosaur claws are much more rare than dino teeth, as dinosaurs' teeth were replaced throughout their lifetimes, whereas claws were not. A formidable predator, Allosaurus had short arms with three-fingered hands completed by razor-sharp claws.

Allosaurus hand claws are much larger than Tyrannosaurus.

A virtually complete Struthiomimus sedens hand, mounted in a lifelike pose. As in all members of the theropod subgroup Ornithomimidae, all three fingers are nearly the same length. Struthiomimus, meaning ostrich mimic, is known from the Late Cretaceous in North America. The genus possessed a small, light, toothless skull, a slender, flexible neck and, most likely, a birdlike horny beak covering the jaws. SEE.

The Ancient Kingdom of Axum

The greatest empire to ever exist in Africa, the Kingdom of Aksum lasted from around 100 AD to 940 AD, and extended across East Africa and beyond, including modern-day Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Sudan. Located in the northern province of Tigray, Aksum remained the capital of Ethiopia until the seventh century CE. The ancient Kingdom of Axum, also known as Askum, stands out for its early use of coins.

The kingdom is famous for its stone cut obelisks. They were carved out of a single stone and marked graves and burial chambers. Its believed that the Queen of Sheba ruled the Kingdom of Aksum for more than 50 years. According to legend, the Ark of the Covenant came to Ethiopia and has till now been guarded by a succession of monks.

Orchids good as gold

According to cops it was a professional job and the thieves knew exactly what they were after. Bearing all the marks of an art gallery heist, this was the scene at Kew Gardens in 2014 where a rare African water lily was snatched. Its thought to have been sold to an unscrupulous private collector.

The legal plant trade amounts to £9 billion a year worldwide. There is a kudos in owning anything rare. Although it’s impossible to give precise figures for plants, there is a thriving black market involving private collectors. If someone wants a species badly enough they will pay vast amounts of money for it. Rare and new discoveries of wild plants are the most prized.

Monkeyface orchid

Hochstetter Butterfly Orchid

Some orchids species are being driven to extinction. One of the world’s rarest orchids was re-discovered in 2014 by botanists on a volcanic island in the Atlantic. There were 250 plants of the unique species on the island of Sao Jorge in the Portuguese Azores, making it the rarest in Europe.

Bee Orchid

Lady's Slipper orchids

The albino form of the Vanda sanderiana or the Waling-waling is a rare and prized plant for orchid collectors and breeders.

Bulbophyllum kubahense

Phragmipedium kovachii was first found in 2001 and is referred to as one of the most important natural history discoveries in the last decade.

Cypripedium calceolus. It receives round-the-clock police surveillance where it grows on a Lancashire golf course.

Paphiopedilum rothschildianum, an orchid that is on top of the endangered species list.

The contemporary orchid-breeding business in Taiwan and its main rival, the Netherlands, centers on the Phalaenopsis, or the moth orchid. In Victorian Europe, orchid hunters, hired by wealthy collectors, sometimes killed each other in pursuit of new breeds.

Bornean slipper orchid

Shenzhen Nongke orchid took eight years to develop and in 2005, it was sold for about $200k.

A new species of orchid found in Colombia has been named Telipogon diabolicus, because the heart of the flower has an eerie resemblance to a devil's head. There aren't many flowers of this kind in existence. Researchers found a small patch of about 30 orchids between the borders of two Colombian departments. So far, this is its only known habitat.

Truk Lagoon National Monument

A visual history lesson from WW II lies at the bottom of Truk Lagoon. The lagoon hosted Operation Hailstone on Feb 16/17, 1944.

American planes launched an aerial attack on anchored ships. Truk Lagoon was a major naval base with an extensive infrastructure for the Japanese Imperial Navy. Because of this, the base was called the "the Gibraltar of the Pacific." Truk Lagoon was considered the most formidable of all Japanese strongholds in the Pacific.

Truk was Japan's equivalent of the Americans' Pearl Harbor, it was their largest forward naval base.

The Japanese fleet lost an estimated 10 warships, over 30 supply vessels, 275 aircraft, light cruisers, and destroyers, and an estimated 4,500 military personnel during the two-day strike.

Forewarned by intelligence a week before the US raid, the Japanese had withdrawn their larger warships (heavy cruisers and aircraft carriers) to Palau.

Khopesh - The Egyptian Sword that Forged an Empire

The Khopesh is an Egyptian sickle-sword that evolved from battle axes. The khopesh dates to at least 2500 BC. The weapons changed from bronze to iron in the New Kingdom period.

The earliest known depiction of a khopesh is from the Stele of Vultures, depicting King Eannatum of Lagash wielding the weapon.

The khopesh evolved from the epsilon or similar crescent-shaped axes. It is a sword that was actually a hybrid between a sword and an axe. The khopesh went out of use around 1300 BC. Various pharaohs are depicted with a khopesh, and some have been found in royal graves, such as two examples found with Tutankhamun. The khopesh was a solution to the limitations of bronze as a sword material. Bronze swords that were too long broke.

3,000 yo gold signet ring back in Greece

The gold Mycenaean ring from Rhodes, decorated with two facing sphinxes, was returned by Swedish officials. The ring, from about the 3rd millennium BC, was discovered in 1927 in a Mycenaean grave near the ancient city of Ialysos on Rhodes. It now returns to the museum of Rhodes.

Mycenaean Greece: The legendary world of Agamemnon

The Schloss Karlsruhe Museum hosted the exhibition "Mycenaean Greece: The legendary world of Agamemnon" in 2018. Over 400 exhibits were loaned from Greece, many of which are shown for the first time outside of the country.

Mycenae Lion Gate

Paris, the son of king of Troy, Priam, kidnapped Helen, incurring the wrath of the king of Mycenae, Agamemnon. The events depicted in Homer's Illiad led to the Trojan War, which took place from circa 1260 to 1180 BC.

Button from the 16th century BC

Gold cup was found by Heinrich Schliemann in one of the shaft graves of Mycenae.

“Eyes of Agamemnon” mask.

Mycenaean Earring